These Rural Americans Are Trying to Hold Back the Tide of AI

Howell Township, a conservative farming area in Michigan, is known for being friendly to businesses. But when a developer proposed converting 1,000 acres of farmland into a massive data center for training artificial-intelligence models last year, the community fought back.

The planning commission and county planning commission eventually voted not to advance the project, a potential $1 billion site for Facebook parent Meta Platforms, and the developer recently withdrew its request after Howell Township put a moratorium on new data-center development...